Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed believes that their success in the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy in England brought a certain amount of stability in the country’s limited-overs squad. He also said Pakistan cricket has changed a lot after their Champions Trophy victory.

Since the Champions Trophy 2017, Pakistan has been doing well across all forms of the game and Sarfraz credited it to a discussion that he had with Chairman of selectors Inzamam-ul-Haq.

As per reports in PTI, Sarfraz told reports on Friday at the captains' press meet ahead of the Asia Cup, “I was made the captain before the Champions Trophy and we had a very young team. My job was to give confidence to the young players and the way we won the tournament was a big boost.”

He further added, “After that Champions Trophy, I met the chief selector (Inzamam) and told him that we don't want too many changes in the team and that's how the stability came about. We have got some brilliant young players like Fakhar Zaman, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, who are all improving day by day. Our ODI performance improved once the youngsters came into the system.”

Pakistan captain also said that their main focus is currently on the 2018 Asia Cup and not thinking much about 2019 World Cup and as the six-team tournament is one of the steps towards the marquee event.

Sarfraz signed off by saying, “Pakistan have a packed calendar going into the World Cup but just like Rohit (Sharma) said we would also like to focus on the Asia Cup for the time being. Then we have the Australia series. We will take it series by series so that when we reach World Cup, we have a fair idea as to where our team stands.”

The Men in Green will open their Asia Cup 2018 campaign against Hong Kong on September 16 in Dubai while face the arch rival India on 19 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.